When the odds stack against you, the human spirit can still pull off the impossible. In this roundup of 10 underground rescues, we explore the most jaw‑dropping moments when people were found alive after days, weeks, or even months beneath the earth.
10. Underground Rescues: The Unthinkable Survival Stories
10. Hidden Treasure Mine Shaft
Back in 1989 a troop of Cub Scouts ventured into an abandoned mine shaft on the outskirts of Salt Lake City, hoping for a spooky adventure. Ten‑year‑old Joshua Dennis, separated from his father and the rest of the group after taking a wrong turn, ended up stranded on a narrow ledge. For five long days he survived by dozing off whenever he could and nursing ten tiny pieces of licorice as his only source of calories.
Rescue teams had swept past the shaft several times, assuming the boys were safe above ground. When a faint cry finally reached their ears, hope was nearly extinguished; Joshua was found suffering from dehydration and mild frostbite, yet his will to live kept him clinging to the fragile ledge.
9. Sichuan Earthquake
The massive May 2008 quake that rattled skyscrapers in Shanghai also devastated the mountainous regions of Sichuan province. Rescue crews struggled to reach remote villages buried under landslides and broken roads, making every minute count.
Against all expectations, 61‑year‑old Li Mingcui was uncovered after seven agonizing days beneath the ruins of a former bazaar in Beichuan County. She endured severe dehydration, liver and kidney failure, multiple fractures to her shoulder blades and ribs, and a punctured lung, yet somehow managed to stay alive until rescuers finally heard her faint calls for help.
8. Wangjialing Coal Mine
In 2010, a tunnel‑boring crew at the Wangjialing coal mine struck an abandoned shaft that was suddenly flooded. The deluge was so massive it could have filled 55 Olympic‑size swimming pools, inundating over a hundred miners. With water rushing in, many workers lashed their belts to the shaft walls to stay upright, while others resorted to chewing on paper, bark, and even coal, and gulping the murky black water to stay alive.
Thousands of rescuers fought tirelessly to pump out the water. Initial attempts by divers failed, but as the water receded, rubber rafts could navigate the narrow channels. In the end, 115 men were pulled to safety, many battling hypothermia, dehydration, skin infections, shock, and dangerously low blood pressure.
7. Bam Earthquake
When the ancient city of Bam was shattered by a devastating quake in 2004, 90‑year‑old Shahrbanou Mazandarani found herself trapped beneath a collapsed wooden wardrobe. Experts had written her off, believing survival beyond three days without food or water was impossible.
Rescue dogs sniffed out a hand that seemed to belong to a corpse, but soldiers soon realized it was Mazandarani’s. After three painstaking hours of digging, they uncovered her wrapped in a blanket. Miraculously unharmed, she thanked God for her survival and asked for nothing more than a soothing cup of tea.
6. Deep Lark Mine
In the winter of 1969, 60‑year‑old William Jones was caught in a sudden avalanche that sealed him inside a lead‑zinc mine, leaving him in a cramped space barely large enough to crouch. For nine excruciating days he clung to a narrow ledge, his hopes dwindling as rescuers grappled with the treacherous conditions.
Attempts to blast a direct passage through the surrounding mud and rock were abandoned due to the risk of a larger collapse. Diamond‑tipped drills proved ineffective, and the only viable option became a painstaking tunnel through 7.6 metres (25 ft) of solid rock. Finally, a team managed to pull Jones through a 0.6‑metre (2 ft) opening, and he descended a ladder on his own.
At the mine entrance, his wife and eleven children greeted him with tears and laughter. In the hospital, Jones relished a warm bath, a clean shave, and the surreal experience of watching his own rescue broadcast on television.
5. Port‑au‑Prince Earthquake
Wismond Exantus was presumed dead when the United Nations declared the Haiti earthquake rescue mission over in 2010. Yet, eleven days after the disaster, he was found alive beneath the wreckage of the Napoli Hotel’s shop, subsisting on cookies, beer, and Coca‑Cola that had survived the collapse.
His brother, refusing to accept the loss, returned to the ruins and heard a faint, distant cry. Determined, he alerted an international rescue team that began drilling through concrete with hand‑saws and power tools, inch by painstaking inch.
The tiniest rescuer—a Scottish woman—had to wriggle through a four‑metre (13‑ft) gap to deliver water to the trapped survivor. Eventually, Exantus was pulled free through an opening barely wider than his shoulders, emerging alive and bewildered.
4. Tangshan Earthquake
The Great Tangshan Earthquake of 1976 claimed over 200,000 lives, leaving the city reduced to piles of concrete and twisted steel. Rescue operations were delayed for days, and with no heavy machinery available, volunteers dug by hand through the debris, battling aftershocks and relentless rain.
After eight days of silence, a faint sign of life emerged beneath a demolished hospital. Lu Guilan, a woman in her forties, survived by drinking her own urine and collecting rainwater that seeped through cracks in the concrete. She endured multiple injuries yet clung to hope.
It took seven grueling hours to breach the final concrete slab. An army photographer, who helped with the digging, captured the poignant moment of Lu being hoisted to safety—a haunting image that still symbolizes the resilience of the human spirit.
3. Beaconsfield Gold Mine
In 2006, two Tasmanian miners—Brant Webb and Todd Russell—found themselves trapped inside their cherry‑picker cage after an earthquake triggered a massive rock fall deep within the Beaconsfield gold mine. For fourteen days they endured darkness and isolation, their only connection to the surface a faint thermal‑imaging signal that finally located them 0.8 km (0.5 mi) below ground.
During those harrowing days, the men survived on a single cereal bar and sipped water that they managed to lick from damp rock surfaces. Rescuers later installed a 12‑metre (40‑ft) pipe to deliver hot omelets, sandwiches, and other morale‑boosting foods. Even Foo Fighters frontman Dave Grohl sent a fax to the duo, encouraging them to keep listening to his music on their MP3 player.
To free the pair, engineers drilled a tunnel through rock five times harder than concrete, employing explosives, rock splitters, drills, and chainsaws. The world watched live as the miners emerged, their triumphant exit accompanied by the ringing of church bells over Beaconsfield.
2. Pingyi County Gypsum Mine
On Christmas Day 2015, a sudden collapse in a Shandong gypsum mine sent massive earth into the tunnel, an event so violent it registered on seismic monitors. While some workers were rescued quickly, four miners found themselves stranded 200 m (660 ft) beneath the surface, trapped for an astonishing 36 days.
Five days after the disaster, infrared cameras detected the men huddled together in a cramped space no larger than 0.7 sq m (8 sq ft). They survived the first two weeks on limited rations, enduring extreme darkness and the psychological strain of confinement. Rescuers could only send food, clothing, and lamps once they managed to drill a narrow shaft deep enough to reach them.
Multiple attempts to widen the rescue shaft failed, forcing engineers to bore an entirely new shaft. Finally, each miner was winched to safety in a small capsule. Tragically, the mine’s owner took his own life by leaping into a well just two days after the incident.
1. San Jose Copper Mine
In 2010, 33 Chilean copper miners were miraculously rescued after being trapped 0.8 km (0.5 mi) underground for a staggering 69 days. The breakthrough came when a tiny exploratory borehole returned a drill bit bearing a note taped to it, confirming that the men were still alive deep within the mine.
During their confinement, the miners sheltered in a spacious chamber, rationing limited supplies of tuna, milk, and biscuits. Once contact was established, rescue teams began lowering food, water, and medical supplies through the borehole, sustaining the crew until a full extraction could be planned.
NASA engineers collaborated with Chilean authorities to design the Fenix 2 rescue capsule—a high‑tech pod equipped with oxygen, communications, and medical monitoring systems. After weeks of drilling a massive escape shaft, the world watched with bated breath as each miner took a 15‑minute ascent to freedom.
As a seasoned Australian writer who has spent a decade in Shanghai, I find these stories a testament to human tenacity and the relentless drive to bring people home, no matter how deep the darkness.